As the year winds down, I like to take more than a couple of moments to consider what I’m thankful for. During our annual Thanksgiving feast, my family has a tradition of going around the table and saying what we’re grateful for. There’s the usual – family, friends, success, “glad it wasn’t worse” stuff. Mostly…
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What All Heroes Need
In the past, I’ve talked in depth about what villains need to bring your story to life. Today we’re gonna talk about the heroes, or protagonists, of your story. The people your reader should identify the most with. The people the story is really about. (Now before we begin, let me say I am not…
My Acknowledgments Suck
Yep, they do. I mean, I put the “ack” in acknowledgments. Come on, where’s the RMFW Colorado Gold three-hour Master Class on how to write your acknowledgments? That is, how to keep track of all the people who helped you out? All these classes and blogs on writing craft and plot and character and voice…
Getting My Mojo Back…But at a Cost
For the last six years I’ve been suffering from serious writer’s block. I did write three books during that time, but it was a total slog. I made myself write, instead of wanting, yearning to write, which was the way it had been for the previous twenty years. Never before had I struggled to put…
What We Like to Hear. What We Don’t Like to Hear. What We Need to Hear.
I remember one or two arguments with my mom when I was little where she insisted she had told me something and I swore I’d never heard it. Later, when I was married, these arguments went both ways—one of us insisting we told the other something and they swearing we never did. I have since…